


aftermath

by honeybatts



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age Quest: Here Lies the Abyss, Grief/Mourning, M/M, One Shot, Post-Here Lies the Abyss, post-marian loved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 07:01:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15680376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybatts/pseuds/honeybatts
Summary: varric learns of marian’s fate following the group’s jaunt into the fade, and shea regrets her decision of leaving him for dead.





	aftermath

        “where’s hawke?” words harsh and hollow, caught halfway between his throat and the air between them, she felt shame wash over her. she knew where hawke was–crumpled, weak and shuddering, beneath the fear demon’s monster, knee bent, hand that once so tightly grasp his staff limp and empty. she couldn’t meet his eyes. if cole were here, he’d say something about how his last thoughts were of varric, hopefully–tactfully–leaving out his last words about spiders. if cullen were here–or maybe even cassandra–they’d mention that what hawke did, he did for the greater good, he did for thedas–for the world. 

        “i’m sorry,” she answered, just as quiet and half as hurt; she didn’t know hawke outside of what varric and cassandra had told her, marian felt more like an ideal than a person, a construct of a man told through tales that started with, “i shit you not–”. how could she decide the fate of a man so easily, a construct, a metaphor, a cause? so easily–too easily, the very thought churned her stomach, how could she? _how could she?_ varric took a half-step forward, eyes tired and glassy and trained on her as he repeated, hoarsely, tightly–Maker, she could feel his heart break as he spoke again–“where’s hawke?”

        and she, as deftly and matter-of-fact as her mother taught her to speak–to lie–“he sacrificed himself so that we may pass safely through the rift. it was not in vain–hawke died a hero.” hawke died. hawke died. marian hawke–amell?–died, but she could see it in his face, the split-second resentment before grief crashed over him, in a giant wave, his hawke dead and it didn’t matter whether or not he was a hero at the end of it. words gave no comfort, and she knew it–no lie or graceful half-truth she could thread together, no matter how carefully, could reverse the decision that  _she_  made, a decision based in fear and lack of confidence, based on “how could we"s and "there’s no way"s. alistair or marian, her father’s friend during the blight, a father himself, she knew him, she _knew_  him, and marian–well, marian volunteered, didn’t he? he said it was better him than alistair, better him than the grey warden who could rebuild the order–as though he’s the only one who could do so–but–

        but the letters she knew that varric had so coveted, the ones that often started with "i miss you, i wish you were here”, the ones that she knew he wrote late into the night, pages upon pages, endless letters that had to be sent in parts to buy time because he could never get the ends how he wanted them, and the look of a secret found out when varric admitted that there was, indeed, someone he could contact, the strain in his throat as, face flushed and tinted red at the apples of his cheeks, he spat at cassandra, “if hawke would have been at the temple,”–the skin on his knuckles white as he grips the banister, probably the only thing to keep him from falling down the stairs, knees probably weak, not from dodging cassandra or nerves, but from  _this_ , here–“he would’ve been dead too.”

        and now he was.

        the hawke he protected for years, as she understood, the youngest of the group. the drinks they shared, the laughter, moments together when they thought no one would notice the way they looked at each other, hanging behind the backs of justinia and anders as they wandered the wounded coast, shea should have known, she should have _known_ , because she played the same games with loghain behind the backs of their parents, and now–now varric hand mumbled something and walked away, and even when they got back to skyhold, she can’t bear to walk back to her room for fear of crossing varric on her way there, the inevitable words of “i’m leaving”, and she–maker, she….

        she fucked up, and she was a coward for never wanting to admit it.

**Author's Note:**

> directly following the initial events of marian loved! i remember not really feeling very good abt this when i first wrote it (like three years ago??), but now… i’m Feeling It. also the Loghain mentioned briefly here is Loghain II, the son of my gf's Cousland Warden and Anora! (also-also, in this continuity there are ~twenty years between the events of Origins and Inquisition!)


End file.
